Development Slate
Abe Gilman's Ending
A complexly layered, poignant, and life-affirming redemption tale in the vein of ‘The Lives Of Others,’ and ‘Atonement,’ ‘Abe Gilman’s Ending’ deftly interweaves two seemingly unrelated stories, and explores the healing power of fiction.
In the first story, wheelchair-bound widower Abe Gilman (Martin Landau) believes that dying would be better than living out his days with the odd and eccentric characters at the Emunah Retirement Home. When Hersh (Elliott Gould), a spirited new arrival, begins to liven up the residents’ routine days, Abe finds himself vexed by the ambitious project the others undertake. In the second story, Elie, a 17-year-old boy on the cusp of manhood in Boston in 1948 begins a love affair with Dina, a woman who has been promised to another man. Meanwhile, Elie is determined to solve the mystery of what truly happened to his father, a Jewish German WWI war hero who remained in Europe, after he sent his family abroad years prior.
Adapted from Glenn Frank's award winning novel of the same name. In partnership with Sheila Jaffe and Brian Bell of Canary Films.
Beemer™
BEEMER™ is the coming of age story of Beemer Minutiae, a smart, hip, ambitious twenty-something who dreams about sculpting the tastes and trends of American culture and whose greatest aspiration is to be his own brand like Jay-Z or Martha Stewart.
When Beemer lands his dream job at powerful advertising agency, Digby Wonger Media, he begins to realize that all is not as it seems. The company is not just branding dishwasher detergent, but also attempting to sell America meat-eating, the resurrection of Ronald Reagan, God, and finally Death itself. Along the way, we meet Beemer’s beautiful ambitious girlfriend Paul, teenage prankster terrorists, a castrato boy band, housewives with a penchant for guns, armored personnel carriers and camo, anthropomorphic dune buggies, and a terrorist act foiled on YouTube.
BEEMER™ is a dark comedy about the meaning of success and the lengths to which we are each willing to go to get it.
Adapted from Glenn Gaslin's novel in partnership with Associates In Science.
The Hebrew Hammer VS. Hitler
Adam Goldberg returns as Jewxploitation hero, Mordechai Jefferson Carver (AKA The Hebrew Hammer).
This time around, The Hammer must team with brother-in-arms, Mohammed Ali Paula Abdul Rahim to take on a time traveling Hitler hell bent on re-writing the Jews out of history. Shabbat Shalom, Motherfuckers!
Holy Skirts
In 1917 no one had ever seen a woman like the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She regally stalked the streets of Greenwich Village wearing a bustle with a flashing taillight, a brassiere made from tomato cans, or a birdcage necklace; declaimed her poems to sailors in beer halls; and enthusiastically modeled in the nude for artists such as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, setting the city ablaze with her antics. Before today's outsized celebrities, there was the Baroness — poet and artist, proto-punk rocker, sexual libertine, fashion avatar, and troublemaker. At the center of the Dadaist circle, the Baroness transformed herself into a living, breathing work of art.
Holy Skirts is a vivid imagining of the Baroness's story. Beginning in 1904, with Elsa's burlesque performance onstage in Berlin's Wintergarten cabaret, the adventures continue across Europe, through turbulent marriages and love affairs, until the Baroness finally lands in New York City, just before America enters the war. As she befriends Greenwich Village artists and writers, she defines herself as a poet, even as she breaks the bonds of female propriety.
In a beautifully written novel, René Steinke's National Book Award Finalist, paints an exquisite portrait of this woman and her time — an era of cataclysmic change that witnessed brutal war, technological innovation, the rise of urban living, and an irrevocable shift in the lives of women, who, like Elsa, struggled to create their own destinies. Holy Skirts is a celebration of resilience and imagination, an exploration of the world in which the modern woman was born, and a testament to the lost bohemia.
Noah Stollman will pen the adaptation.
Man's World
“Man’s World” tells the story of Jake Johanson, a soon-to-be-married everyman who feels controlled and emasculated by the women in his life. His fiancée Nancy won’t let him buy a Harley with their shared savings, and at work, his high-powered boss Janice constantly rides him.
When Jake stumbles upon a magical fraternal origination called N.O.A.M. (The National Organization For The Advancement Of Men), he’s given the opportunity to step into an alternate universe called Man’s World, where every mans' adolescent-driven testosterone driven fantasies become reality. However, beware of what you wish for…
Odd Todd
A live action feature based on the wildly popular web cartoons of the same name (Odd Todd) by creator Todd Rosenberg.
When Todd, an unemployed slacker, locks himself out of his apartment in his bathrobe on the same day his unemployment runs out, he is unleashed into the wilds of Manhattan and forced to use every resource at his disposal to find the $85 he needs to get back in.
In development at Paramount Pictures.
The Orbit Of Bob
Bob marks, a high-school freshman, feels invisible; particularly in the shadow of his popular older brother. However, when a science experiment goes awry, Bob suddenly discovers, remarkably, that the world has begun to revolve around him.
In development at Nickelodeon.
Philosophy
Written by David Bromberg ('Dedication').
Tiger is a mess - emotionally, existentially, metaphysically...
He also has just written the most brilliant doctoral thesis in Philosophy of the last seventy years.
Tiger Ross has proven that he does not exist. Having pulled off this feat, Tiger is a shoo in for the coveted David Dennett Honorary Chair in Philosophy; a tenured faculty position.
Tiger also needs a temporary tutoring job, and things begin to go awry when he chooses a PhD candidate to tutor: His ex-fiancée, April, with whom he broke their wedding engagement five years prior. To make matters worse, Tiger is madly in love with April, and wants her back. April, however, is anything but willing, and only agrees to let Tiger tutor her because she knows how good he is. Things take a turn for the worse when a vengeful April decides to write her thesis on why Tiger Ross DOES exist.
For advice, the lovelorn Tiger routinely “visits” an imaginary place called the “Metaphysical Café” – a huge café on a deserted street in a Post-Apocalyptic France. Inside, all of the great philosophers of history give Tiger advice (some good, some not-so-good) on his his rather awkward predicament; does he help April cancel out his own thesis at the expense of his only hope at the faculty Chair, or does he sabotage himself to win her back?
Producers: Josh and Brian Etting
Untitled Blue Sky/Fox Animation Project
Super top secret, but very unique and funny. For producer Chris Wedge at Blue Sky Studios ("Horton Hears A Who," "Ice Age.")
Television Projects
Big In The '80s!
Theatre Projects
Hebrew Hammer: The Play
The Hammer is too legit too quit (bad pun intended) as he hits the Stage this December at Detroit's Planet Ant Theatre!
Web Projects
Arts and Crafts
Produced by Pyongson Yim. Production Design: Cabot McMullen. Cinemtography: Bobby Lam. Editor: Katie Best. Music by Michael Cohen and Mocean Worker.
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On The Streets - with Jonathan Kesselman
In the name of Gaia, I terrorize NY'ers in this Man-On-The-Street comedy show for The Mother Nature Network. The show launches Tuesday May 12th!